[Chuck]

Hello,

I am testing your Connections plug in for a website re-design. Want to be able to sort the entries in a business directory by category, but can not find how to do that. Currently the list is sorted by name and the categories seem to be ignored. Can you enlighten me?

I am sure this has been asked but I have spent quite a time looking and can not find the answer. Thank you!

[Steven Zahm]

@ Chuck

You can not sort by category, but you can filter by category. You would need a template which supports this such as cMap. Any template which has a category drop down would allow you to filter by category.

Hope that helps!

[Chuck]

Hi Steven,

Thank you for the reply. OK, so I can manually set up a page sorted by category by using:
[connections category='xx']

If I do that, and purchase a template with a search feature, can I display ONLY the search feature at the top of a page made as described, and expect it to work properly?

[Chuck]

Let me clarify the above:

I can manually set up a page sorted by category by using:

Category xx
[connections category='xx']
Category yy
[connections category='yy']
Category zz
[connections category='zz']

[Steven Zahm]

@ Chuck

That would not work out too because the search pagination and other Connections related queries would affect all instances of the shortcode on the page.

Something that might work well enough for you could be this…

The Widget Pack has a search widget. You could add this widget to the theme’s sidebar. This widget would do a search on the page set as the directory home page.

So, you could create a “Results”. The page name does not matter, it can be anything that is relevant to your useage.

You would set the page as the directory home page.

This page would have only a single instance of the shortcode with no options.

You would then change the shortcodes on the category grouping page like so:

Category xx
[connections category='xx' force_home=true]
Category yy
[connections category='yy' force_home=true]
Category zz
[connections category='zz' force_home=true]

Now all links on the category grouping page would resolve to the “Results” page too.

I know other use this type of setup although I can not think of any I could show you off hand.

Hope that helps!

[Author]

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